Andrey Kurkov: Death and the Penguin

[Polly Parrot]

Death and the Penguin, written in 1996, translated by George Bird in 2001.

I found the novel slightly odd, in a good way, that is. It was an entertaining book to read, something completely different from what I've been reading lately. The novel, then, is about Viktor and his penguin, Misha. I found Viktor a mildly annoying character, mostly due to his never standing up for himself or actively questioning the goings-on of his life and especially of his job and the people surrounding it.

The plot seems rather repetitive but I suppose that is to illustrate the monotony of life in Kiev, or perhaps just life as Viktor. Kurkov does this successfully yet this is also where the novel's flaw lies: after the umpteenth obituary that has been sent off, or yet another mystery parcel delivered to Viktor's flat in the middle of the night, the novel becomes slightly tiresome to read. Towards the end of the novel, however, the pace starts to pick up a little, which is nice for a change.

I will read the sequel, Penguin Lost, mostly because I want to find out what happens to Misha the penguin, I'm not as interested in Viktor, but maybe he'll redeem himself in part two.

[Eric]

Someone mentioned Kurkov to me the other week. But I've never read anything by him. As it was published a decade ago, Polly Parrot, what interested you in him now? I see that he was at Edinburgh last year, so that may have brought him more UK readers.

As someone who has myself translated 3 books by the Estonian author Jaan Kross (who spent 8 years in the GuLag and internal exile), I am of course on the ball when it comes to things Soviet. But I've not really come across this Russo-Ukrainian author.

What you say about the mystery parcels delivered in the night and the tedium thereof reminds me of when I tried read a novel by the Czech novelist Michal Ajvaz, who somehow turned Prague into a mystery, rather than examining things. I must say that the penguin angle sounds a bit contrived, not least because their sex lives are evidently rather unusual, as I read in the press somewhere recently. So maybe true penguins are stranger than fictional ones. See, for instance: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012...cott-antarctic

[Liam]

My mom's never heard of this guy, and she's Ukrainian.

[Eric]

All I've got to say, Liam, is that I'm glad for him that he didn't have to sully his clean little hands by joining the vulgar KGB, but wangled it, by having good connections, to get into military intelligence and then get the, erm, plum job of prison warder, so that his copybook would not be blotted, and he wouldn't be forced to remain in the Soviet Union for another 25 years. The whole story sounds a bit funny: prison warder writes children's books after refusing to join the KGB.

So, bugger the penguin (sorry, that's a British colloquialism), I'd like to know more about what Kurkov did during Soviet times. What happened, for instance, to his Japanese studies? Was he no good at languages? Couldn't they use him as a spy because he couldn't grasp the intricacies of Katakana, Hiragana and Kanji, let alone the grammar?

And I'm not giving him a flag, because he wasn't born in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, but in Leningrad. And we can't use two flags.

Polly Parrot, take note. A little deconstruction of Soviet heroes does no harm.

[Liam]

bugger the penguin

I'd rather not, but thanks for the offer!

[pesahson]

I stopped reading this book halfway through. It just seemed to be going nowhere and there was nothing that would keep me hanging.

[kpjayan]

I read this book way back in 2002 or so, and had a favorable impression. I liked the allegory. Haven't read any other book of him, although his books are displayed prominently at the book shop I frequent.

[Eric]

I'm glad that I elicited exactly the response I wanted to from Liam.

But there is a serious side to this. As someone who has translated three politically alive postmodernist novels from ex-Soviet language Estonian, I am fully aware what kind of evil empire the Soviet Union and its satellites was. Many people living in the West are still incapable of realising what a horrible system it was, with centralised planning leading to permanent consumer goods shortages, and the threat of being literally sent to Siberia for the slightest misdemeanour (such as belonging to a nationalist organisation, or possessing a set of the Encyclopedia Britannica). Also not being able to travel to Western countries, because the rouble was worthless, and you, as a Soviet citizen, would have to to go through a huge bureaucratic procedure to get an exit visa, and an entry visa for the return journey, as well. It was terribly humiliating for Soviet citizens spending a short while in the West to be virtually the permanent guests of their hosts, as they couldn't exchange the rouble for "real money" except at a ridiculously unfair rate while still in the Soviet Bloc. All this too is fantasy world - but real-life fantasy, that real people suffered.

With both Kurkov and Ajvaz (the latter of whom I mentioned in my previous posting) I get the feeling that the author is using magical realism, absurdism, surrealism, and so on as a way of avoiding coming to terms with the grotesque aspects of the system they lived under. So they escape into a fantasy world of nonsensical and rather exaggerated happenings.

Authors such as East Europeans Václav Havel, Tadeusz Konwicki, and Arvo Valton, plus Mikhail Bulgakov, Evgeny Zamyatin, and quite a few other Russian writers, wrote absurdist or surreal works, but these were in essence critiques of the real, existent, political system of the time. They were most certainly not retreating from the realities of the Soviet Bloc, but making fun of it instead, as committed authors.

I get the feeling, however, that these post-Soviet absurdists are somehow avoiding a direct confrontation with the realities of the past in order either to hide something or avoid the whole subject. Some of these people who refused to join the KGB (could you refuse?) are a bit suspect in my opinion, as are those who were about 50 years of age when the Berlin Wall fell, but whose biographies have large gaps between their twentieth and forty-fifth year when they magically and suddenly became dissidents.

[Polly Parrot]

Eric: I saw it in a bookstore and it seemed like something light(ish?) I could read besides the books I've been reading for my dissertation. I found the idea of the penguin as a character in the novel intriguing so wanted to know more.

Also, the novel and the penguin might be part of a fantasy world but it's a very bleak one. It's a very isolated life that's portrayed in the book but, as I said above, I'm not sure whether that is typical of life in Ukraine in the late nineties or just life of this particular fictional character.

[Liam]

I'm glad that I elicited exactly the response I wanted to from Liam.

On the subject of Ukraine and buggering, the latter may become illegal under a new law, though not, supposedly, the heterosexual kind, .

[Eric]

I'm not part of the back-end brigade, Liam, but I did see that that weird ginger blue-bespectacled singer had written a very sober article in the Guardian, quite rightly using his status to enhance his message:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...ghts-elton-ohn

I admire people who use their celebrity status to promote justice.

[Liam]

The guy is in the news again if, that is, this is the same Kurkov, saying something or other about the Ukrainian language which, of course, I myself am also proficient in (but don't care as much about, evidently).

Ukraine's War of the Words

[Eric]

I get the feeling that Kurkov is of the same ilk as Slavoj Zhizhek, i.e. someone who is exploiting his East European background for all it is worth but has little new to say. I don't trust either of them. I get the feeling that they have learnt a thing or two from the Vicar of Bray.